


Regarding the Moonlight.

by moz17



Category: Muse
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 14:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moz17/pseuds/moz17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom sees Matt one night and realises he thinks he's beautiful. Dom POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I didn't understand before. But now I do. I understand a lot of new things.  
Firstly, I finally understand how one moment can change your entire life. I never bought into any of that crap, how one moment changes your destiny, blah, blah, blah. But now, I do believe that one moment can change your present circumstances forcibly, strangely and irrevocibly.  
How did I arrive at this conclusion?  
Well, we were off fishing together in order to get some video footage for our DVD. We had a good time. We laughed at my strange talent for fishing, laughed at Chris's girly reaction to the worms and laughed at you, Matt, acting the prat as usual and managing to catch a fish and then lose it.  
We slept beside the lake that night, in a tent, to prolong and authenticate the adventure.  
I woke up in the middle of the night to an unfamiliar darkness, broken only by Chris's snores. I unzipped my sleeping bag and clambered out of the tent, my sleep warmed skin crying out against the feeling of the cold night air.  
The fire we had lit earlier had dwindled down to a pile of barely glowing embers, emitting about as much heat as a cigarette. I found my way uncertainly through the trees, peed and then surveyed what was around me.  
The sky was clear, devoid of any clouds and a full moon shone down on me. I didn't want to go back to the tent.  
I walked along, stepping over rocks, crushing leaves beneath my feet and brushing off branches which left damp trails on my skin.  
I broke out through the trees and surveyed the lake. It looked like a sheet of ice and I could see the moon's reflection in it. There wasn't a single other sound except for my breathing. I felt an unbearable temptation to throw a stick into the glacial sheet of water in front of me, a childish desire to disrupt the lake's perfection and to delight in the ripples it would create.  
I hunkered down behind a rock and poked around for a stick. I froze though, as I heard something else splashing in the lake water, pre-empting me. I held my breath and clutched my stick tighter. I crept over and peered my head around the rock to see who or what the intruder was.  
It was you. I was about to chuck my stick at you and call you a tosser for scaring me, when it happened. That moment came which changed everything.  
The moon shone down on you, picking you out and acting as a spotlight, showing your neat form squatting by the lake. You were dabbling your hands in the water, trailing them one way and then the other. You cupped your hands together, dipped them into the water and splashed the water over your face. The moonlight made your skin pale and luminescent. Drops of water glistened on your face and that was the moment. I realised that you were beautiful.  
I had always known you were good looking. I knew that. You were good looking. Chris was good looking. Heck, even I was good looking. I understood that. I was still faintly amused by the groupies. I didn't get what they were obsessing about. But in that moment, I did. You weren't just good looking. You were beautiful. Ethereal. I found myself holding my breath as I looked at you, feeling stupified an unnereved. I didn't want to blink.  
You continued your ablutions. you splashed your face again, closing your eyes, then opening them again, blinking away the drops of water. The water made your eyelashes clump wetly together, giving your eyes a soft look. Your eyes shone a muted grey in this strange light. I could only think of their usual electric blue and wonder how I had escaped noticing them for so long.  
You then pulled your shirt off and your slender frame and taut skin was blanched bone white by the night light. You dipped your fine fingers into the water again, throwing the water over yourself, until your dark hair was slicked back from your face, like a duck's feathers, emphasising your arresting bone structure. Droplets rolled down your back and off your shoulders. I had to fight another urge to touch them and feel the dampness beneath my fingers.  
Lastly, you lay back and pulled off your trousers and wearing only your boxers, you waded out slowly into the water, until it was over your knees. You didn't do anything. You only stood there, looking at the sky, Ripples emanated from your legs, becoming fainter and fainter.  
I sighed deeply. I stood up, as you had your back turned to me, and I padded back to the tent as quietly and as quickly as I could.

I understand now how a moment can change everything. I understand how shockingly beautiful you are and felt my heart flutter strangely at this fact.  
I also now understand the consequences of my unintentional voyeurism.  
I don't think it's a sexual thing. I think it is just an appreciation of beauty. But that is hard to take and to comprehend as you are my best friend. it changes everything, that's the consequence. I can no longer touch you or have you touch me without a thought at the back of my head. We can no longer joke together, you knocking me to the ground, falling into my lap or resting your hand carelessly on my shoulder without seeing you as you were that night, without tnesing at your touch as I recognise how beautiful you are and in turn the strange power it now holds over me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom struggles with his developing feelings...

I can't even let myself look at you anymore. Which is ridiculous. It reminds me of being back in school and trying not to look at your current crush during class.   
This is different. You aren't a crush. You couldn't be. I can't accept that. I only want to look at you and delight in looking. But, I just can't.  
I am so intensely, horrifically aware of your presence now. I am worried that you will catch me staring at you and you won't understand that there is nothing implied by it.   
I stare at the ground now when you talk to me or I look off into another direction when you sit beside me. Then I realise that intentionally averting my gaze from your face will look even odder and could betray me just as easily. I try to treat you exactly as I did before but I can't even remember how it felt to talk and look at you without feeling an odd sensation in my stomach. So, I try to look at you and not to look at you at the same time. I must look like I had Tourettes.  
This struggle frightened me. I could appreciate beauty in women. I could let my gaze run over their curves and shapes as much as I wanted. This meant I could digest their attraction and work it out of my system. I can't look at you that way though. I won't allow it. Neither would you. So, it tortures me. I lie awake at night, desperate to examine your unusually beautiful face, feeling if I could just look at you, look at you properly and complete my devouring of your body, I could forget about it all.   
But how to get another glimpse of you without arousing suspicion? I feel as if it has to be by moonlight again. The night hides and carefully cloaks these alien feelings of mine. Darkness is far too real for my niggling secret. Yet, the sun lights your face just as wonderfully as the moon. But, you thrive in the perpetual night of a concert, where you are the only light to the thousands of people there. I envy them. They can stare at you for ninety minutes and it is expected.  
I try to slake my thirst by secretly looking at your picture in NME. The photographer clearly sees your beauty too. The cover photo is evidence of how the photographer worships you and like Dorian Gray, you were made to be worshipped.   
It is no good though. It is worse than nothing as I can feel a faint flicker of what it is to look at you and be beside you. It is not enough. This irritates me more than not being able to look at you at all. I need to look at you properly, when you are in front of me. I need to see your hair spilling over your forehead; I need to see if you have any freckles, I want to check the exact shape of your eyebrows framing your face. Then maybe I can rid myself of this feeling.  
Another night follows and I find myself lying awake again, looking out the hotel window at the waning moon. Only a sliver of light falls upon the carpeted floor and the bed across from me, illuminating your rumpled shape.  
I decide I have to deal with this now. The longer I leave it to fester, the stronger it will get.   
Chris keeps snoring as I slide out of my bed. I place my bare feet on the floor, moving softly, terrified of breaking this closed, and almost cloistered silence.   
I walk over to your bed; I'll look at you while you are asleep. I can satisfy this need and move on.   
I stand over you, enraptured. You look like Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps that sounds bizarre. You couldn't look anything less like her. She was a sexy, voluptuous, blonde woman. You are an icily beautiful, brunette, unbelievably slim man. But I compare you with her as you both posess the same qualities. As perverted as it may sound, Marilyn Monroe was a woman-child, perhaps only a girl-child. You are a boy-child. You are incredibly sensual and sexually aware but simultaneously, you are extraordinarily innocent.  
Your pose is so provocative, sprawled across the bed, your T-shirt riding up indecently; your arms flung across your pillows, suggesting a willingness, a readiness. But your visibly protruding hip bones and thick eyelashes fringing your cheeks make you look incredibly, disturbingly child like.  
I don't feel any better. I only feel odder for having these thoughts about you.   
I lean down closer. This is uncomfortable, so, recklessly, I hunker down on my knees beside your bed and fold my arms on the mattress and rest my head there.  
I look at you and try to remember you as my friend, try to make everything innocent again, as innocent as you look. Your mouth is open though, your lips parted suggestively and your neat teeth glisten in the light.  
I swallow and try to regulate my breathing. How can I be acting like this? A beautiful face cannot drive me to such obsessive extremes.   
Unless...  
You moan in your sleep and roll onto your side, the side closest to me. I can now feel your breath gently rippling across my forearms.   
I daren't move, though I sense danger. I feel as if I have been granted an opportunity to view some wild creature up close and I am not going to leave my position unless absolutely necessary.   
"Dom?" comes to me, softly, thickly.   
Why won't I move? Why do I have to gratify this mad desire?  
"Dom, are you awake?" you mutter more clearly.  
Unless...unless, I am motivated by something deeper than just your beauty.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shared sleepless night. Dom's POV.

"Dom, are you awake?"  
You lift up your head. I quickly scramble into a standing position. You look at me, your hair tousled and your face sculpted into an even more ghostly shape by the moonlight behind you.  
"Hey." I manage to choke out.  
"What you doing?"  
I shrug my shoulders, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. What the hell is going to happen now? Why did I put myself into this position?  
"Couldn't you sleep?" you inquire.  
"No." I breathe out sharply, relieved you supplied me with an excuse. You mustn't have seen me leaning on your bed and watching you.  
"I'm amazed I manage to drop off myself." you continue. You rub your hand over your face, scrunching up your features and chasing away the last traces of sleep. You turn to me again, your eyes glowing sapphire even in the dark.  
"Wanna watch rubbishy TV or something? Hopefully it'll send you to sleep."  
You fumble for the light switch and golden artificial light fills the room. Chris continues to snore. You give a short laugh.  
"Jesus, not even an earthquake would wake him up."  
You smile at me and I gratefully sink onto your bed. As you grab the remote control and turn on the TV, all I can see is that smile. It emphasises your child like side again, making your features come together and glow. But, it also speaks to me about so many other things.  
You plump your pillows up and lie back, watching the screen, your long fingers clutching the remote control. I lie beside you, pretending to watch the screen but really, looking at yyou, trying to sate my mind of its mad longing. As I look at you though, I have a frightening realisation.  
When you smiled, it was as if all the broken lines and confusing episodes of my life had been linked. Your beautiful features still dominated my mind but even more uncomfortable thoughts crept into my head.  
I suddenly think of your longing and willingness to experience every side of life and your ensuing dare devil antics. I think of the times we spent together as teenagers, sharing those rites of passage involving drink, drugs, pornography and going to gigs. I think of how I always wonder what mad adventures you will dream up next and yet I feel perfectly safe with you. I can remember the first time I heard you play the piano and I realised I was working with a genius. I think of your quirky, slightly hysterical sense of humour and how you give me a sly look when you're about to do something you know will make me laugh.  
In that moment, I realise how truly unique you are. As they say, you are more than just a pretty face. You are like only a handful of others, who are so out of place, so out of time and in the possession of so many characteristics that make you an icon.  
Your smile communicates all of this to me and I realise with a sinking feeling that just looking at you will never be enough. I now want more than to look at your face and body. I shiver involuntarily at this thought. You look over, breaking your focus on the late night chat show.  
"You OK? You cold?" you ask.  
I nod slightly, just wanting to make the question go away. I don't think communication is possible at the moment.  
"Here." you slide your hands under the blanket and fling one half of it over me, smile and go back to watching the TV.  
Jesus, how are you capable of being so innocent?  
Again, I am terrified to move. I feel the heat emanating from your body, wrapping itself around my night time cold frame and I can't quite clear my head. I wish I could laugh at you at this moment.

We lie like this in silence for a while, watching the TV.  
"Why couldn't you sleep?" you ask during an ad break.  
"Oh...just...I dunno. Do I need a reason?"  
"No, of course not. You should try and sleep though, we have another big gig tomorrow."  
You yawn yourself and I can't help but smile. Your mouth opens widely, enticingly. You shake your head and wriggle your shoulders.  
"I'll try." I say quietly.  
I do try. But the adrenaline is pumping through my body and it is impossible.  
Your grip loosens on the remote control until you lie back, asleep again, a gentle sigh escaping your lips.  
I slide the remote from your slack fingers and turn the TV off. Silence descends. I look out the window at the ever brighter sky.  
I look down at you again. You look unreal. You are like some pencil and paper etching of ideal beauty that I'm afraid to touch.  
I wonder if you're dreaming and what you might be dreaming about. I'm all of a suddent jealous of your dreams, belonging entirely to you and no one else.  
I wriggle down into the bed. I turn to face your sleeping frame, examining your Grecian brow and the furrow that still digs into it, even in repose.  
"Jesus, Matt." I whisper, realising I want to reach out and touch you.  
I close my eyes. I wish I hadn't seen you that night, bathing yourself. I wonder though what you were doing there that night. Tiredness begins to overwhelm me and as the remaining night swallows me up, I think I hear you whimper in your sleep.  
Oh Bellamy, what are you doing to me?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts of Matt overwhelm Dom...

I open my eyes slowly. Sunlight stings my vision. Shielding my face with my arm, I sit up. I see the empty space beside me and I hear the shower running. Chris's bed is empty too.  
I scrub at my face, my mind feeling grungey due to the night's interrupted sleep.  
I sit in the bed, thinking about last night. I don't know what it means. I don't know what any of this means.  
I groan and fling myself back onto the bed, pulling the blanket over my head. I just want to get off the world for a while, stop it shaking and get back on when it has resumed its normal course. It's the only explanation and escape I can think of.  
"Come on, Dom, get up or we'll be late." your voice comes to me.  
I reluctantly push the cover away from my face and instantly wish I hadn't .  
You have just emerged from the shower amidst a cloud of steam wearing only a towel around your waist. You stand over the bed, picking some pieces of clothing out of a suit case. I can only look on, horrified. As you pick up shirts and jeans and reject them, I stare at the creamy expanse of your back and the bones moving underneath, just visible, like branches of some strange tree. Your brown hair is as sleek as a seal's and looks just as soft to touch. Droplets of water are dribbling from your still wet hair. Some drops collect along your jaw and hang there, suspended and glittering. It is all I can do to stop myself from brushing them away. Other droplets race down your back, trailing along the hollows and curves before finally disappearing into the band of the towel slung around your waist.  
Jesus fucking Christ.  
I stand up, getting ready to go to the shower myself. Lord knows I need one.  
You have finally picked out a top. You pull it on over your head, your muscles tensing along your chest and the skin straining ever tighter over your ribs. The white shirt clings to your still damp skin and I have to flee to the bathroom.  
I can't take this. I lock the door and lean against it, trying to breathe properly.  
I want you. There is no other way to say it. I want you. I want to cram you into my mouth and keep you there.  
I shake my head. Stop it.  
No, it's gone far beyond the stage where I could tell myself to forget about it.  
"Hey Dom." you call out.  
"Yeah?" I manage to reply.  
"I'm going to go down and join Chris for breakfast. You having a shower?"  
"Uh-huh."  
"OK. See you in a bit."  
I hear the door close. Thank God.  
I can't let this go on any longer. Right. Fine. I'm attracted to you. Sexually. Physically. Let's deal with that so I can move on.  
I turn the shower on and get in. The hot water beats down on my back, reminding me of the droplets rolling over your body. I moan but let my fingers stray to my crotch, sliding down and grasping my cock.  
I picture you in my mind, standing in the moonlight and throwing water on your face, I envision your frame flung across your bed last night and I see you standing in front of me, shower fresh and covered only by a towel.  
I lean my forehead against the cool tiles of the shower and let the water cascade over my head and face. I slide my hand up and down along my cock, rasping along faster and faster, the heel of my hand slapping dully into my lower belly at each stroke.  
I feel my insides knotting up, signalling the oncoming of my orgasm. I breathe faster, hot water streaming down my face. I keep going, straining, teetering horrifically on the edge of coming. My movements become more violent, even faster, picturing you again and again, still waiting for the release I desperately need.  
But my mind wanders to you lying beside my in bed last night and turning to smile at me and I suddenly come.  
I slump forward, hunching up.  
I pant, propping myself up against the bathroom wall with my hands.  
I shakily turn the shower off. I step out and wrap a towel around myself.  
I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself. I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror and look at my reflection.  
There. I must have dealt with that successfully now. I just had to allow myself that moment of lunacy and weakness and now I can forget about it. You have to give into your desires now and then, meet them half way or ekse they'll cause you havoc.  
I get dressed quickly and go downstairs to find Chris munching his way through breakfast and you downing a cup of coffee. Your full lips suck the last drops greedily from the cup and I watch you swallowing mouthfuls of the liquid.  
My stomach turns over uneasily. How can I look at you after what I have just done? It wasn't that bad, I tell myself.  
I approach the table, thinking about this.  
I did what I did to rid myself if this sexual fantasy. Tha's OK. I can allow myself that. I can just about allow myself to want you physically.  
But anything else is pure anathema.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom continues to fall for Matt, and getting closer to him, finds that all is not well with his friend...

Over the following weeks, my bout of madness seems to be abating. At least, I think it is. I can look at you now without feeling strange and slightly untethered, as long as I am prepared for meeting your gaze. If you just pop up into my sphere wihtout any warning, I find it difficult to keep myself together. I feel a deep blush starting at the tops of my cheeks, reaching all the way down to my neck and back up to the tips of my ears as I think about what I did in the shower. 

You, of course, are oblivious. You have other things to be thinking about. So, I know you’ll never even suspect my brief infatuation. 

Your concerns should be my concerns too, as they are about the band. Here we are, on a world tour, promoting our second album, playing to more and more hysterical crowds every night- and yet, it’s not the main thing occupying my mind. 

I notice a change in you. You seem muted somehow, just at the time when your natural exuberance should be spilling over, unchecked. 

One night, I can only look on helplessly as you shiver and writhe on a hotel lobby floor, in the throes of whatever stimulants you have ingested. I sit on a couch, watching and unable to move, as I am in a drugged haze myself. I am also pinned to where I sit because I am fascinated by how hypnotic the narcotics have made your eyes, widening the pupils, as if you had taken Belladonna. 

This became a regular occurrence. You also started to join me on my sleepless nights. I would be distracted from staring out the window of the tourbus by hearing you rattling around at three o’clock in the morning and when I myself woke up the next morning after finally dropping off, I would find you sitting up, having not gone to bed at all. 

Your moods became unpredictable and extreme. Well, more so than usual. One moment you could be chewing anyone and everyone out for God knows what and the next moment, you could be laughing. I never reproached you for this, neither did Chris. We kept back and let you rant, because we didn’t know what to do or what was happening. You sensed this I think and were embaressed, so you pulled away too. 

You are hard to live with, hard to figure out. But we don’t acknowledge this, as to acknowledge this would also be admitting there was some sort of problem. How could there be a problem? Things have never been this good for us, for the band.  
But still, I notice your lips becoming chapped and your finger nails being slowly bitten down. 

I find my fascination for you is building up again. My indulgence in the bathroom only gave me a quick respite.  
What is all this? I honestly don’t know. How can you hold me in thrall this way?  
It’s not even the fact that you’re another man that I find disturbing. It’s the fact that it’s you, Matt, my mate. It seems far too odd, almost like fancying your cousin. 

I don’t fancy you though. To me, ‘fancying’ someone suggests that you want that person to possess you, whereas I want to be the possessor. I want to own you.  
I have to look at you again. All I need is to steal glimpses of you at odd intervals and that will be enough to keep this under control. 

That evening, I climb back onto the tourbus, tired from the concert we just played. Chris sent me to fetch you and his cigarette lighter.  
Your onstage persona has stirred me and I walk towards the tourbus feeling restless, anticipating another night of tossing and turning after the drinking session is over.  
I go in through the door and rummage around quietly for Chris’s lighter. I don’t call out your name, to see if you’re here. I know you’re here. I want a chance to see you before I make my presence known.  
A curtain separates our living and sleeping quarters. The curtain is pulled half closed and around it, I glimpse you. I suck my breath in and stop, hiding behind the curtain. You haven’t seen me. You aren’t aware of me. A part of me does realise what I’m doing is wrong and creepy but that part of me is only protesting in a muffled voice, like a radio with a cloth thrown over it.  
I look around slowly.

You are changing out of the clothes you wore on stage. You pull the flimsy piece of material off over your head and fling it away. You run your hands through your sweat darkened hair. You search for another shirt to put on. As you search, I find thoughts creeping over me like a fog; so slowly and slyly that I don’t even notice that they’re there until it’s too late and the cloying mist has wrapped itself around me.  
I imagine placing my rough, drum player’s hands on your pale, soft body, trailing my finger tips from your bird like chest to your hips, to finally discover if they are as arousing to touch as they are to look at. I imagine laying you on the bed, you closing your eyes and throwing your head back, in passion and acceptance, exposing your white throat. I would kiss it and feel your life blood pump through you. I imagine straddling you, holding both your arms down, leaving you no room to move, so I can look and look and look at you until I am finally full. 

I gasp shakily, involuntarily at my thoughts. I peep at you again. I don’t think you heard me.  
I get ready to call out your name and to find Chris’s lighter. I can’t allow myself anymore of this at the moment. I feel like I’m falling further everytime I look at you. I wonder what it would be like to look at you the way I do when you were aware of my gaze and were looking back at me. 

You are holding a shirt in your hands and you pull it on. Then you sit down heavily. You examine the items on the table in front of you and pick something up. It’s what I was looking for- Chris’s lighter. You also pick up a pack of cigarettes. You look one. I’m about to say something, ask you when you had taken up smoking, when you lie back, push your trousers down slightly and apply the cigarette to your left hip, the hips I was only just fantasising about.  
A red mark is visible, not bleeding but it looks white hot with pain.  
I can contain myself no longer.  
“No! What the hell? Why would you do that?” I cry and move forward.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom confronts Matt...

I go over to you and stare at the puffy pink welt rising on your hip. You look up at me, your eyes wide and frightened, like some wild animal trapped.  
“It was…I…” you stutter.  
“I saw you.” I say, sounding angrier than I had intended. “What is this? What’s going on?”  
You look so vulnerable, so young. I wish I could place my hand on your brow and somehow erase this moment and whatever caused it.  
I don’t know what to do. I pick up your discarded stage clothes and start to fold them. You watch me and I stop.  
“What’s going on?” I repeat desperately. “How could you do this to yourself?”  
You look at me, square in the eyes. You seem to be assessing me for some purpose.  
You sigh. “I don’t know what it was. I think it was like wanting to punch a wall. You think it’ll make you feel better but it only makes you feel better for a second.”  
Your voice is low, detached, worrying me even further.  
“Is this the first time you’ve…?” I trail off, too ashamed to even say the phrase.  
“Yeah.” You look away from me, ashamed too. God, all I want to do is reassure you somehow, perhaps by gently pressing the knuckles of my hand against your cheek or stroking your back.  
“It…it’s been stressful.” You finally enunciate.  
“What’s been stressful? The touring? Are we touring too much? If we are, we can stop. Do you need to take a break?” The words tumble out of my mouth, tripping over each other in their worry.  
All the rubbish and junk of the past two months is forgotten. All I want to do is make you feel better.  
“No, no. It’s not the gigs. It’s not that.”  
“Then what?” I ask.  
“You’re disgusted with me, aren’t you?” you say quietly, the matter already decided in your own head.  
“No. No, no, no, I’m not! I just find it sad and terrible that you felt you had to do this to yourself and all this time, I never knew.”  
You looked comforted at this and I’m glad. I’m perversely glad that what I think of you matters so very much.  
“Come on, Matt.” I take advantage of the moment. “What’s been going on?”  
And it finally comes pouring out. The record company. Those fucking wankers in suits aren’t happy with us apparently. We’re not making enough money to line their pockets apparently and they’ve been placing sly and sometimes not so sly pressure on you. You list the talks, the notes, the hints and meetings and I grow angry. They didn’t bother me and Chris. You were their biggest investment, the one who would make the highest return. I clench and unclench my fists as you relay all the sordid details of their dealings and their effect on you. You felt you couldn’t get the results they wanted. And they, they who are worth nothing compared to you Matt, drove you to this.  
I’m so angry, angry at the world and at myself, angry at you for subjecting yourself to them. I think I may punch a wall myself.  
It’s at this moment that Chris arrives. He takes one look at the scene and demands to know what is going on.  
You walk over to the tiny window and look out, your eyes glassy, your body tense and held stiffly.  
“Will I tell him?” I ask you.  
You nod. So, I tell Chris. He looks as angry as I feel.  
He rubs his hand across his face and sighs.  
“We’ll deal with those pricks tomorrow.” He says to the tour bus in general.  
“Matt,” he continues. “Let’s get you sorted out. I think we should clean that up.” He nods at your still visible wound. “Could get infected.”  
I stay where I am, silent, uncertain what to do.  
“Matt?” Chris asks again.  
I look over and see a transformation taking place in you that I haven’t seen since you were fourteen.  
Your cheeks have become splotchy with an angry red colour, much like the wound on your hip. Your eyes are still glassy but have morphed from their usual clear, azure blue to a dark, stormy blue. I see your shoulders tense and you swallow hard several times.  
You start to cry and I feel as if the wind has been knocked out of me. You cry weakly, like a small child who doesn’t want to cry, but can’t help themselves. Tears roll down your cheeks and you angrily try to brush them away but your whole frame is shaking.  
I want to go over and comfort you somehow but I know I can’t. I can feel Chris staring at me, wondering why I’m not doing something. Even you, Matt, you look at me through your tears, silently asking for help, comfort for something and you look away quickly again.  
I don’t move. I stare at the ground. Chris sighs and goes over to you. He puts one of his gigantic arms around your shoulders and starts talking about how we’ll sort this out. He looks at me accusingly.  
I leave the bus. I walk away, away from the car park, the venue, just walking along the unfamiliar streets, trying to forget the picture of you crying helplessly.  
I couldn’t go and comfort you, not even when you wanted me to and Chris expected me to. I couldn’t because I would have enjoyed it too much.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dom tries to redeem himself...

I don’t go back to the tour bus. I spend my night in a bar, until I’m kicked out. Then I wander the alien streets of Paris, sometimes resting by the Seine, at other times sitting on a bench. I wait for the sun to come up and for a café to open. I hide myself in a corner at the back and drink black coffee.  
I am ashamed of myself.  
I let my perverted obsession go so far that I wasn’t able to comfort you, my friend, when for once, you needed me.  
I twitch uncomfortably, remembering my realisation that I would have got pleasure, a sexual thrill, from holding your weeping frame.  
I am disgusted with myself.  
I don’t want to go back. I know I have created enough of scene by disappearing all night, causing worry to be shifted to me, when it should been reserved only for you.  
I have to go back. I have to apologise to Chris, to you and then strongly suggest that the group cancel the rest of this tour. You need a break and I need to get away before things get anymore twisted. 

I approach the tour bus nervously. Who I’m more apprehensive about seeing, you or Chris, I’m not sure. I feel as if you both saw a part of me last night that I didn’t realise I had, or more correctly, didn’t realise I lacked and I fear you will both look down on me for it. 

“Hey.”

It’s you. You stand outside the tour bus, waiting for Chris presumably. Your skin looks pale in the day light, making the dark smudges under our eyes look even blacker and your features starker. You’re wearing a red shirt and I can imagine the puffed up, similarly coloured welt on your hip.

“Where did you get to last night, Dom?” 

“I just needed some space…a walk, you know.” 

“Pretty long walk.” 

“Matt, I ‘m really sorry.” They’re the only words I can think of to say, meaningless as they are now. 

You smile; your smile a better defence mechanism than any sharp words or reproaches. 

“It’s all right- Let’s forget about it, yeah?” 

“No, it’s not ok.” I reply. I look at your worn and bitten fingers. I should have known something was wrong. 

“Not now, Dom. We have press to deal with. It’s good you came back now. We only have to wait on Chris.” 

You look away from me, lean against the tour bus and start to tap you fingers on the metal.  
I remember last night. I put myself first. Now, I’m going to make up for my uselessness and selfishness. 

“Fuck’em.” I say. 

“You what?” you look at me confused. 

“Fuck the press.” I say slowly. I jerk my head towards the streets. “Let’s go explore Paris.”

You stare at me and a big grin spreads across you face. 

“Fuck’em!” you repeat, nearly giggling. 

We scurry off, leaving Chris to deal with the press. He’ll understand. 

We repeat my tour of Paris. We visit bars down little side streets, check out the tourist joints and even stumble upon an erotic museum, which makes us both snigger. As our tour of Paris progresses, we get progressively drunker and giddier. I feel like we’re back in Teignmouth, skipping class. It also signals the return of the old Matt. 

“I’ve missed that.” I say. 

“What?” 

“You. Yourself. The old Matt.”

You say nothing. I feel as if I have said something wrong. 

We end our disjointed tour of Paris at dusk, by walking through Pere LeChaise. 

“We have to go see Jim Morrison’s grave.” You say. 

“Come on Matt, that’s such a tragic cliché.” 

You glower at me and I grin. 

We are disappointed though, when we get to the grave to find it surrounded by metal barriers and a security guard beside it. It seems to go against everything Jim stood for. 

“That must be a fucking odd job.” You mutter as we leave. 

We get slightly lost and wander through the graves, looking for a way out. We’re starting to wonder of we’re going to get locked in, when we stumble upon Oscar Wilde’s grave by pure chance. 

“Jesus, it’s beautiful.” You gasp, surprised. 

It is. The gravestone is made out of granite and an angel with raised wings is carved into the stone. The grave itself is covered in countless lipstick kisses, going all the way up to the angels legs. There are notes, roses, lilies and even cigarettes, left as little tributes and offerings. 

“They loved him so much.” You say, sounding confused and overwhelmed. I’m not much better. I return to the only thing that has been on my mind all day. 

“Matt, I’m sorry. “

You respond this time, your tongue loosened either by drink or this affecting gravestone. 

“It’s ok, I suppose. I was asking for too much. “ 

You aren’t being sarcastic, but honest and it wounds me. 

“I was being desperate, needy. I’m all right now. We’ll sort it out.” You repeat Chris’s words. 

“No, you weren’t, I’m your friend and I couldn’t…”

My tongue fails me. I don’t want to betray myself. But I also want to fix our friendship, make everything ok again.  
Christ, this is my entire fault.  
I want to tell you I’m sorry and how much your friendship means to me but I’ve never uttered those kind of sentiments in my life, so how can I start now, with you?  
But I’ve been thinking of you in a bizarre way these past few months. I’ve become attracted to you and I wish I knew what it meant.  
All I know is that it’s ruining my friendship with you. It’s my responsibility to fix this.  
The wind ruffles your hair and you shiver as the wind whips around, signalling the oncoming of night. I see goose-bumps on your arms. Five o’clock shadow stains your face, amking you look incredibly sultry and the final few rays of the sunlight make your eyes sparkle and glitter. I catch my breath at this sight and am glad that only I get to see this moment. 

I decide the only way to fix this is to tell you. 

“Matt.” I start hoarsely. I clear my throat. 

“There’s something I need to tell you.” 

I’ve taken the plunge now. I can’t pull back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom finally tells Matt...

“What?” you ask. 

I swallow and my throat clicks dryly. I shove my hands into my pockets and try to think of what I want to say. 

“Things have been weird.” I start. 

You say nothing. 

“Between you and me, I mean. Like, I wasn’t able to…help you last night.” 

“Dom, forget it.” You say, half laughing. Reference to last night makes you uncomfortable. Maybe I’m not going to make this situation better by telling you what’s been going on in my head. Maybe I’m being selfish again, telling you this only to try and make myself feel better. You don’t need this.  
But another part of me quietly yet strongly counters that I’m scared and am trying to latch onto any excuse to back out of this. I know I need to do this, for the sake of our friendship. 

“It’s because I…for the past while…do you remember spending the night by that lake, after we had done the filming for the DVD?”

“Yes.” You say simply, wondering what I’m on about. I wish I knew myself. 

“I couldn’t sleep that night. I woke up and went for a walk. I ended up beside the lake. I was behind a rock. You arrived and waded out into the lake.” I stop myself from saying “started washing yourself” as that seems too intimate. 

“You were there that night?” you ask, surprised. 

“Yeah. What were you doing there?” I can’t help myself. I have lain awake at night, leafing through those mental snap shots of you that night but also wondering what had drawn you to the lake side. 

“I couldn’t sleep either. I had had a phone call from the record company.” You say, grimacing. 

“About what?” 

“The usual.” You reply, dismissing the subject. I know you better than that. God, I hate those suits. 

“Bastards.” I mutter. 

You smile lightly, glad of my expression of being on your side. 

“But anyway, what were you saying?” you ask. 

I blink. I had forgotten what I was talking about. My belly dips and rolls as I remember. 

“I saw you there that night.” I say, in a faint voice. “And I just thought how beautiful you were.” The word escapes my lips. It’s such a girly word. I don’t think I have ever used it much before. I blush over using it- I can feel myself blushing. I squirm over the words I have to use. 

“And I’ve been thinking that ever since.” I finish lamely. I know no other way to put it. I stare at the ground, waiting. 

I don’t know what I expected to happen but I don’t think I expected you to laugh. You laugh, your unique, infectious, high-pitched giggle starting deep in your throat and escaping your mouth uncontrollably. I laugh a bit as well, trying to protect myself. I have never felt more vulnerable in my life. 

“Sorry.” You try to wrestle your giggling under control. A smile still lingers around your lips, lifting the contours of your face and emphasising your cheekbones even more. 

“I wasn’t laughing at you.” You say. “I was laughing at…I’ll tell you in a minute.” You look at me directly, your arresting blue eyes looking into mine and I become lost in those eyes. Then I cringe, wondering how deep I have let myself fall from my initial admiration. 

“So,” you look at me sideways, a mocking grin crossing your face. “You fancy me?” 

“NO!” I splutter. I hate that word! “No, I just thought…” 

Your grin widens. “It’s OK Dom. I used to fancy you.”

“Sorry?” 

You completely disorient me with this information and any direction or control I believed I had over this situation is now gone, shown up for the illusion that it was. 

“What? When was this?” I ask. 

“When I was about sixteen.” You say in a conversational tone of voice. “I don’t know what happened.” You kick a few fallen leaves out of your way. “You were the coolest guy I knew. I think that was part of it. And you were really good looking. “You stumble over the words. 

“Were?” I ask, trying to take the piss. 

“You still are. Twat.” 

I relax. Despite the oddness of the conversation, it somehow feels natural, almost like discussing who won the football over the weekend. 

“What happened?” 

“Well, it went on for a while. Obviously I was never going to do anything about it. Knew what would happen if I did. Anyway, I got over it. Teenage crush.” You shrug your shoulders. “I think everyone gets something like that. Someone’s such a good mate, that when you first become friends with them, it’s almost like a honeymoon phase, getting to know them. Then you settle down. But during that time, you mix up stuff in your head. I guess you didn't have it when you were younger and so you’re getting it now. I always knew you were a slow developer.”

I glower at him this time. 

“It’s funny though.” I say. “That you had it for me and I had it for you.” 

“Yeah, it’s ‘cause you have good taste and I don’t.” 

I shake my head and smile. 

“So, that’s why you were laughing before?” I ask. 

“Yeah, sorry, couldn’t help myself. It was such a weird coincidence. Also, I never thought I’d hear you talking like that to me.” 

“Shut up.” I grin. “Listen,” I straighten my face, thinking about something else that has been bothering me. “Do you need to take a break for a while, from touring and the band?” 

“What? Dear God no!” you cry. 

“I thought after last night…”

“Last night was a one off.” You say in a firm tone. “I let things get to me. I’m OK now. We’re going to fix it. I’m not going to let those gits get the better of me.” 

“Good. I was worried about you.” 

“Don’t.” 

I feel a bit needled at this sharp, terse response. But after my reaction last night, have I lost the privilege to worry about you? 

“It’s also…” I continue, dreading having to finish this conversation. “What I just told you…that’s why I wasn’t able to go to you last night and..”

You look away. “Ah. I get it now.” 

“I’m sorry. “ I whisper, feeling shame wash over me. 

“Dom, Jesus, forget it! The last thing I want is for you to be unhappy over me!” You pause, seeming to consider something. “Did you…did you ever want something to, you know, happen between us?” 

“I’m not sure.” I say honestly. You tuck your chin into the collar of your coat, your eyes looking up at me. “I don’t think so. I think I only…” 

“Fancied me.” You finish.

“I detest that word.” 

“What else do you want to call it? You liked how I looked but didn’t really consider the possibility of being with me. What would you call that?” 

“Fine. Fancy you.”

Your conversation though begs the question- would you have ever let something happen between us? I am too scared to ask. 

“Are things OK between us now?” you ask. 

“Yeah, I think so.” 

“It’ll sort itself out.” You say, referring to my confession. “I guess we better head back.” 

“Chris will kill us.” I feel sober already. 

“Possibly. But we’re small and fast, I think we’ll escape all right.”

We make our way back through the streets, side by side. You hum quietly as you walk. The sun has set now and darkness is creeping over the city. The fluorescent signs light up your face as you walk by the various shops, sculpting the most glorious hollows under your cheekbones and casting darker shadows under your eyes. I feel intimidated by you for the first time in my life. 

I can’t even take in the information that you used to like me. You used to like me in that way. I wonder if you felt just as tortured and confused as I did. I do? I’m not sure, not as confident as you are that this is something temporary, that is going to fade away into nothing.  
I’m glad nothing’s changed. Well, for you. I didn’t upset that fine balance of the relationships within the band. I should be glad of that. I am. 

Yet I can’t stop thinking- if you once felt like that about me and I feel like this about you- is it a sign of some kind? Does it mean that there truly is something more to our friendship?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Dom's confession...

Thinking about you is like getting to the stage of being slightly drunk- tipsy, pleasantly inebriated, still having fun- and you reach for another drink, even though you know, you KNOW, that this will be the one that will send you face first into drunkenness, all-out loud drunken stupidity and embarrassment. You’re that dangerous. Thinking about you is just as fine a balancing act, a state I have to monitor carefully or else I’ll end up on the wrong side, having had too much and leaving me with bad memories. 

I try to stop thinking about what you told me that day at Pere LeChaise. I try to forget about the question I wanted to ask you but couldn’t bring myself to-

“Would you have let something happen between us?” 

I close the door on the sly and tricky thoughts developing in my mind, I close the door, locking the thoughts outside, hoping that they’ll drown,  
Unfortunately, the rain makes them grow and they come back, knocking on the door to my brain, impatiently, demanding attention. 

“It’s OK, Dom. I used to fancy you.” 

Just when I think things are starting to sort themselves out, my mind starts to taunt me and you, Matt, pull away. 

You yourself asked ME if things were ok between us. Now, you seem to be avoiding me.  
I suppose it was too much to hope that my admission to you wouldn’t change anything.  
I don’t fell completely humiliated though- you made a similar, if somewhat late, confession to me. Which is what my mind keeps returning to.  
Despite my best efforts, I think about how you once found me attractive and on some juvenile, superficial level, you wanted to be with me.  
I can’t help but grin to myself when I think that you used to look at me and felt, possibly, what I feel when I look at you. I wish I could see myself through your eyes.  
I feel absolutely chuffed and baffled to think that you could have really felt like that. 

I also ponder another idea- if you feel like that for someone, once, can you truly go back to the way things were before? Even if your feelings have faded?  
I still find it hard to hand out with ex-girlfriends, even if we are on good terms. I get confused by memories that all of a sudden seem to be standing right in front of me, scents and snap shots from the deceased relationship which become incredibly vivid the more I talk to the girl. Can that ghost ever be exorcised, taking all traces with it? 

You withdraw into yourself. When I ask you if you’re all right (as memories of the cigarette lighter are still fresh in my mind), you only nod, say ‘yes’ and finish up the conversation very quickly and move away from me. You never seem to be alone with me anymore and I know this is an intentional orchestration on your part. Chris and Tom don’t seem to notice, or at least, they decline to comment on this new situation. This is the first time in the history of our friendship that I have felt this distant, this alienated from you. 

I am comfortable in myself, in my sexuality. This doesn’t scare me or disgust me. It only perplexes me a bit, nags at me. It’s not simple, that’s why. If I thought a girl was a stunner and I wanted to go out with her, I wouldn’t have to analyse it. This is different. 

I think about my predicament during sound check today. I pound the beats out on the drums. Thank God for drums. There is a rhythm to drums and there is a time signature- whether it is only four straight beats in a bar or a compound time, there is still a set of rules you have to operate within. There are endless variations and ways to play within that frame but the main rule remains- when you play, you are either playing in time or out of time, right or wrong. You can’t see it any other way. If only life were like that. 

 

I start to think about other things, my mind drifting away from the task at hand, as I play automatically and instinctively, look to see where you are. 

You are over talking to Tom. You’re standing near to him, comfortable and unaware of the proximity. You are resting your elbows on the sound desk. Looking at him as you talk, acting completely natural.  
You never act like that with me anymore. You no longer touch me, look me in the eye or even smile at me. I haven’t had a proper conversation with you since that day in the graveyard. 

I miss it. I really miss it. 

I miss talking to you, how when you talk about something you’re interested in, your face lights up and your hands fly around, moulding the air into the shape of the words you’re using.  
I miss being able to make you laugh- only I could ever reduce you to a wheezing, giggling heap. I miss the feeling it gave me.  
I miss being able to connect with you on stage, that connection that so few other people in the world can say they have something like it and that connection, when it’s made, leaves us in an untouchable area, unable to acknowledge anyone else’s presence.  
On stage now though, you refuse to look at me as we play. I miss how we seemed to fuse as one, musically, mentally, often physically, pushing the music and ourselves until we could go no further.  
I miss you. Full stop. I miss you. 

The thought hits me and I miss a beat, destroying the rhythm I was playing. I pretend this was intentional and twirl one of my drumsticks in the air, then catch it, deftly.  
You notice the drumming being disrupted and you look over at me unexpectedly. 

I return your gaze. Tom is still talking to you but you pay him no attention. What are you looking at? I wonder. What do you see when you look at me? 

I know what I see when I look at you. I see a body more enticing to me than any page 3 girl. I see fragile wrists I want to clasp in my hands and fingers that I want to feel creeping along my waistband. I see a neck I want to kiss and black hair I want to bury my hands in, in order to feel it and also to tilt your head back and up to mine. I see blue eyes I can never escape and the mouth I want to lose myself in.  
This examination takes all of a few seconds. I wonder who will be the first to break the gaze. 

You smile at me. I don’t know what the smile means but I smile back. It’s the first proper contact I have had with you since Pere LeChaise and I’m glad for it.  
You look away and return to your conversation with Tom. 

I have gone from admiring your beauty, to being aroused by your features and wanting to touch you. I have learned to value our friendship and our musical connection and missed it when it was taken away. I have spent many sleepless nights thinking about you.  
I pick up my drumsticks again, feeling calm. I start to play again.  
I realise what I have just described, to do with how I feel about you, builds a picture of something that seems quite similar to love.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dom struggles with Matt's actions and his own reactions...

I don’t know what your smile during sound check meant. I wonder what you meant by it and what my reaction means to you. It seems to have erased any trace of the Matt of the past few days, the one who froze me out completely. You have welcomed me back into your life and while I’m glad for this, I am also confused by how you are acting. You have done a compltet volte face, leaving me breathless and insecure (which pretty much describes how I feel when I'm around you anyway). Instead of shutting me out entirely and unconditionally, you have become so close and intimate with me that I start to wonder if you are flirting with me. 

It’s ridiculous. We are both well able to flirt. I have seen you in action, felling countless women with your odd charm. I myself flirt with women and they flirt back. I am used to women’s coy smiles, smouldering glances and meaningful physical contact. But I am not used to it from you. 

I keep telling myself that I am imagining it. You are only acting the way you did before, before any of this started. You are being the old Matt, my best mate. But now, my mind is interpreting these innocuous actions differently. Before this, sexual innuendo involving you and me would never have entered my mind. I wish I could go back to that but I can’t forget, I admitted to myself, nearly admitted to myself that I feel something more for you than just friendship.

But do I know what to do about it? Fuck no. 

You seem to have some plan of action though. That was always how you opereated. You would make up your mind about something and after that, it was how things would be, no matter how much it startled the rest of us. Whereas I prefer to lie back and see the way the land lies before I get involved. It’s not that I’m easy going, passive or laid back. It’s self-preservation in most cases. Despite your slight figure, you have more strength than I do. You make your decisions regardless of everyone else and I wait and see, make my decisions accordingly, to defend myself against anything untoward that might happen from going against other people’s wishes.

I wish I could predict what you do and say. I really didn’t expect to come out of the shower just now, wearing just my jeans and in search of something to wear on top, only to see you in the hotel troom. This situation reminds me painfully of seeing you fresh out of the shower, looking like a freshly laundered seal and the other time I saw you undresss and you hurt yourself so terribly. I don’t know where to look.

“Just came to get my mobile.” You state. You walk towards me. I instinctively grab a shirt and then I feel ridiculous at how girly I am acting. I can feel a blush heating my face. 

“What are you doing?” I jerk out. 

“My phone's on the table. You’re standing in front of the table. You’re in the way Dom.” You say slowly, mocking me. 

I can now identify with the women you reduce to a quivering pile. I have never felt the force of it before and it is also the first time I let those thoughts into my head, I unlock the door for them and I wonder if you feel something similar to me. 

I go to move out of the way but you reach one arm around me and grope along the table. 

“Must be on the other side” you say breezily. 

Your eyes flick over my body. I feel like a hooker being sized up by a lounge lizard. Although, the expression on your face is so lascivious that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a forked tongue flickering from your mouth. 

I have never seen you gaze at me in such a predatory way before. You reach around with your other arm, feeling your way along the table. You don’t remove your other hand, so I am pinned ther by you. You are so close to me yet no part of your body is touching mine. I can only feel the heat of your body and your hair nearly tickling my face as you lean over.

“Got it.” You break the spell by pulling away, freeing me. You hold up the mobile. You turn to go and then look back at me. 

“You coming?” I can see you’re half smiling, delighted with the affect you’re having on me. 

“Yeah, in a minute.” I somehow manage to enunciate. 

You leave and I finish dressing. I think that was just another game on your part, which was why I didn’t react to the overt come on. It wounds me a bit, to believe, to realise that you could treat me so flippantly, carelessly, obviously. 

It hurt because I want so much more from you and I am only starting to realise this. I have no idea how to express it or if I even should. You said this would fade but I think you were wrong. I think it has always been here, dormant, waiting for us to mature and respond to it, recognise what was happening. I’m not sure what to do about it or how it affects my life. All I know is that it is too strong to be ignored. 

I’m in bed now, thinking about today and your strange performance. Was it meant as a confrontation or a temptation? Both? I have a worrying suspicion though it was you satisfying a teenage whim that went unfulfilled. It’s not a true feeling, not even true lust, just a rememberance of something denied to you and human nature makes you want to have it, even if the feeling that first inspired it is gone. You want to have me because you never got to. And now you know you can. 

I sit up in bed, hugging my knees. I listen to the familiar sounds of the bus moving thorugh the night as we move onto another city. 

I wish I didn’t know you so well. I wish my body and my mind (and another part of me I don’t want to bring into this- my heart) hadn’t picked you. I can’t defend myself against this. How can I be in love with my best friend? 

I know I have to do something, before you choose to do something about it. I decide tomorrow I will get you on your own and ask you about the incident in the hotel room today. It could be a useful way to ease into a conversation about this…this thing that we, or I, may or may not have. 

But as always Matthew, you put a spanner in my flimsily constructed plans by climbing into bed with me at this point.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt in Dom's bed. What does Dom do?

I hold myself rigid. I barely allow myself to breathe, for fear that a quickness or heaviness of breath might be taken the wrong way. 

“Bellamy, what are you doing?” I ask through gritted teeth. 

“I couldn’t sleep.” You say in a whisper. 

“So, you came over here?” 

“Yeah, well, the last time you couldn’t sleep, you came into my bed, remember?” you rejoin.

Oh Christ, I do remember. At the start of this bizarre part of my life, I went over to your bed to look at you. You woke up and I ended up in bed with you, I fell asleep beside you.

“That was different.” 

“How so? Now I know why you were there.” You mock me with the confession I made to you. You hold it over me, gleeful, turned on by the feeling it gives you. 

Christ, it was bad enough being in thrall to you without you knowing but now you know…

I close my eyes. 

“Fine then. Go asleep, Matt.” 

“I can’t. I think I need something to help me drop off, to help me relax…”

I hear the rustle of the blanket and I feel your hand moving towards mine. I reach out and instinctively grip your wrist, stopping you. 

“No.” I lean up on one elbow. Then I decide that this might seem like a very intimate pose and sit up fully. I hate how you make me second guess myself and think I’m the one doing something wrong. 

“Shit, Dom, you’re hurting me.” 

You look uncertain and I feel calmer. 

“No, Matt.” I say again and release my hold. You rub your wrist. 

“Why not?” you grumble. “You want it.” 

I’m glad it’s dark so you can’t see how hurt I must look. 

“Maybe I do Matthew, but not like this.” 

“What’s wrong with this?” 

“I don’t want to be treated like a groupie.” 

I’m still unsure as to how to deal with my feelings for you but I at least know that this is the wrong way. You become stubborn though, and cruel, the way you always do when you feel patronised or unsure. 

“You’re not denying that you don’t want it though. That you want me. Makes you just like any other groupie. I know I could have you in a second, just like the rest of those girls.” 

You spit every word at me and my eyes involuntarily sting with tears. 

I don’t respond. I instead concentrate on my breathing- in and out, deep and slow- until the tears recede. 

“I don’t want to fuck you and fuck up this friendship.” I state simply. 

“Fuck me? Who says you would be fucking me?” you say huskily. 

“Stop it!” I say, the anger clipping my words short. “Stop using your tricks and lines on me, OK?” 

Because we both know they’ll work. 

“You’re only doing this because you know you can. It doesn’t mean anything to you. Just another scratch to notch up on the wall.”

“Do you want it to mean something?” 

I can’t see you in the dark, I can only feel your body so very close to me, both of us sheathed together under the blanket. The moon shines in through the window, tracing silver patterns on your exposed, bare shoulders and collarbone and the moon’s glow gives your dark hair a surreal sheen. 

I take a breath, to steady myself. “I either want it to mean something or to just stay friends with you. Anything else would be a mistake.” 

“Dom, I know you want me. You told me that you think…you think I’m beautiful.” You stretch the word out, torturing me as I am rawly reminded of how you looked that night in the lake, splashing water over yourself. 

“Yes, but you don’t Matt. You said you felt like that when you were sixteen and that it was a teenage crush, which you got over. You expect me to believe that changed in the past few days? You have gone from being a friend, to ignoring me, to wanting to be with me again? I just can’t believe that.” 

There is a pause and I think you are about to say something. You don’t. You only breathe in deeply and then exhale, intentionally letting your breath whisper coolly across my face. I think I may crumble and give into you. I don’t know how I’ve survived this long, with you right beside me, wanting to sleep with me. That breath of air sparks my imagination and makes me wonder as to what your hands, your tongue, your hair would feel like on my skin. 

My reverie is broken though. 

“Well, Howard. We won’t know unless we try.” 

I feel the tips of your fingers touching the waistband of my underwear and before you can come into contact with my skin, I push you out of the bed. You might be stronger mentally but I am still physically our superior. 

“I told you- not like this!” 

I stare at you, wishing I could see your eyes properly, wishing I could talk to you properly, make you understand. You look back at me, your face a mere shadow in the dark. The only thing that comes to me clearly is your voice. 

“Fine. Make up your fucking mind Dominic and don’t be such a bloody prick teaser.” You fling these words at me before picking yourself up and stalking back to your own bed. 

I pull the blankets back over my head and shamefully, pathetically, give way to the tears that were threatening earlier. I cry quietly, mortified and crushed. 

Christ Matt, I do want you but not a cheap fuck like that. I want to make love to you, I want to be with you and to love you. And I am selfish enough and vain enough to want you to love me back. And I don’t believe you do.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attempt at a fresh start...

The tour ends and we disperse, heading back to our separate homes. I have no chance to talk to you before the tour finishes. I don’t try too hard to talk to you, admittedly, as I half wish you would come and talk to me, seek me out of your own accord. When I do gently venture to talk to you, I can’t penetrate your barrier of silence. So, instead the situation remains unresolved. 

I go home and try to resume my normal life. The problem is though, you are a part of my normal everyday life. A huge part of it. You always have been. I again feel the loss of you and wish I had been more brave and persisitant in trying to talk to you. I instead did what I usually do- I saw you didn’t want to talk, realised if I tried to talk to you, I would get shot down. So, I retreated, in order not to be hurt but this hurts a lot more. 

Yet I still don’t want to be the one who approaches you, I don’t want to be the initiator. The one who tells the most, reveals anything first, is the one who risks losing the most. I’ve already put myself out there. Somehow, I nearly prefer this half-life to certainty. 

I realise I will have to deal with it at some point. There is a lot more involved in this equation than simply you or I. There’s a band, other people, a whole career and way of life to consider. 

Why couldn’t I learn not to shit on my own door step? Although, a small voice keeps continually nagging at me that this could be the best thing that could ever happen to me. If it doesn’t turn out to be the worst. 

I tramp the same streets everyday, doing nothing and going nowhere until something in me crumbles. It happens when I find myself wandering along the beach for the third day in a row. I was walking on the sand, listening to the sound of the waves and I wondered if there ws a way to catch that noise in a drum rhythm. I could hear you in my head, snorting at first and then getting excited- “No, hang on, that might actually WORK Dom, we could do this with it….”   
I understood none of this was going away and the last little piece of pride I had left after our encounter in bed that night disintegrated. I had nothing left. When I got home, I called you. 

“Hey, Matt, it’s Dom.”

“Yeah?” 

I tried to brush aside your rudeness. 

“I think we should meet up. There’s still stuff we need to sort out.” 

“Fine.”

Which is how I find myself walking towards you this crisp, clean spring afternoon. You are leaning on a stone wall, over looking the swirling, eddying river down below.   
Your frame is hunched over, your eyes the same colour as the river.   
I’m just not sure what I’m doing. I know things can’t stay the way they are but I can’t quite decide what I want from this. Maybe I am a tease, I cock teaser, just like you said and I need to stop messing you about. Or maybe I know exactly what I want but I won’t allow myself to believe it is a viable option. 

“Hey.” I say.

“Hey.” You turn towards me but don’t look at me, instead turning you gaze awkwardly back to the river. This lets me know that you at least feel something over the situation. 

“What happened?” I ask simply, asking myself as much as you. 

“Nothing. I tried to get a shag and you kicked me out of bed, that’s what happened.” 

I look up suddenly, that tiny spark of hope igniting. You tried to sound flip and careless but you sounded bitter and hurt. You sounded rejected. 

I try to think how to approach this, as I know one wrong word will anger you and turn you against me, make you unreceptive. 

“Matt, I didn’t reject you.” 

You hunch further forward until your nose is practically touching your folded arms, your gaze ever on the river. 

“I only rejected the way in which you approached me. I thought you only wanted a shag. I couldn’t handle that.” 

I wait. You don’t reply. You bend down and pick up a stone fron the ground, straighten up and fling it into the river, the stone only making a small impact before being swallowed again and the river continuing on, as if nothing had ever disturbed its course. 

“I couldn’t handle that.” You start hesitantly. “I couldn’t take in the fact, the idea, that you wanted that. So, I decided I’d shag you and you know, prove you wrong.” 

“Prove to me that I didn’t really care about you? That I was wrong? I didn’t actually want you? Oh Matt, this was a done deal a while ago.” I say barely above a whisper. 

How could I ever let myself get into such risky territory? I pause, knowing that what I’m about to say next will either make or break this situation.

“Or maybe Matt, you were trying to prove it to yourself, not to me.”

You whirl around, your mouth open and ready to argue. But then your face clears and slackens. 

“Shit.” You say. You shake your head and half laugh. “I fucked things up, didn’t I?” 

“A bit.” I smile slightly. 

“It never left me.” You blurt out.

“What…?” 

“How…it didn’t fade, Dom. I just buried it, ‘cause I knew it would never happen. Pretended it wasn’t there. It wasn’t too hard. Fuck, then you told me that day in Paris and I felt so bloody angry. I just wanted you to stop talking. It was cruel. I thought…it started making me think about it again, so I told you to forget about it. It obviously wasn’t affecting you as much as it had me. I was angry. That sounds stupid but I was. I felt like you had got off easily or something. So, I flirted with you, to drive you nuts, like I had been. Then I thought if I slept with you, I would forget about it.”  
You pause. “I’m sorry…for doing that to you. It was shabby.” You mumble. 

I don’t know what to say. I feel angry, bad for you and unbearably excited, all at once. I walk away a few paces, then come back. 

“I don’t think either of us expected this.” I say. 

“No.” 

I try to lighten the tone. “If you told my seventeen year old self that I’d be here, doing this, I wouldn’t have believed you.” 

“If you told my seventeen year old self we’d be standing here, doing this, I would’ve have been thrilled.” The words tumble out of your mouth, they way you always talk when you’re nervous. 

“You would’ve been scared too.” I reply. 

“Yeah.” 

“Just how I feel now.” 

“Me too.” You sigh. “Dom, I want this so much.” I know how much of a struggle it is for you to say things like this and I silently will you on. You start suddenly. 

“As I said…this has always been here, I think. I just, I learnt to ignore it….shit, yeah, I just said that.” 

You giggle nervously and run your hands through you hair but you never break eye contact with me. 

“I think now I can accept it.” Your tone has become desperate, confused. “I just, I don’t know how to start it. I was worried it would end if it did start and then I wouldn’t have…” you bite back the words, visibly embaressed. 

“You wouldn’t have what?” I prod gently. 

“I wouldn’t have you at all.” You look at the ground. 

Christ, I thought I was going to be the vulnerable one but we are equally unsure and unprotected. I try to think where to go from here. The whole scenario has been so unusual. It came about between two people you wouldn’t normally bring together and it happened in such an odd way too, came about through so many twists and turns. Maybe the solution of where to go from here is to be normal. How do you act normally in this situation?  
I can’t help but grin as the idea hits me. 

“Matt. Will you go out on a date with me?” I flush at asking you this, grinning. 

Your eyes widen. “What?” 

“I’m asking you out on a date. I was hoping for a better reaction than that.” 

“A date?” I see a smile tugging at your lips. 

“A date, Matt, yes. Let’s forget all the junk of the past few weeks, ok, pretend it never happened. Let’s just say that I realised I liked you a lot, think you’re gorgeous and hoping and guessing you felt the same, I asked you out on a date and now I’m waiting for an answer.”

Your face breaks out into the brightest smile and you giggle in delight, tinged with shyness and I know I’m making the right decision. 

“Yes, Dom, I’d like to go out on a date with you.”

“Where do you want to go?” 

You name a pub. 

“Maybe we could go out afterwards, to a night club.”

“Sure.” You say. 

“Tomorrow?”

“At 8?” 

“I’ll pick you up.” 

“OK.”

We stand there for another moment. I think both of us are too surprised to do anything else. 

“I’ll see you then.” You say. 

I nod. “Bye Matt.” 

I walk back home, my tummy swirling from nerves but in a pleasant, slightly high way. 

I bustle about my flat, thinkg about which night club we should go to, how I’m going to act and when I might get to first kiss you. 

My bubble is burst though when I hear frantic knocking on my door. 

It’s you. 

“Matt…?” I ask confusedly. You look pale, ashen, twitchy, not at all the blushing content man I left only a few hours ago. 

“I’m sorry Dom but I have’t been totally honest with you.” You look almost on the verge of tears, your voice agaitated. 

“You were so honest and thoughtful, talking to me that way, organising a date, saying all those things that sorted everything out, saying that we’d forget everything and basically start over.”

I nod bewildered. 

“I haven’t told you everything Dom, I’m sorry.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt finally opens up to Dom...

You stand in the doorway, that same look on your face as when you gazed at me as you cried, begging me for something. The same need is etched on your face but I do not know what it is you want and need right now.

You step inside and I close the door behind you. You pace around the room, jaggedly, stopping and starting, looking panicked.

“Matt, what happened?” A thought hits me. “It’s not the record company, is it? What have those bastards done now?” My conviction grows that I have hit upon the problem. “Have they said something about…that we can’t be together?”

I’m ready to fight for what we have barely even started. But you shake your head.

“No, no Dom. Nothing like that. It’s something I’ve done.”

You stop your pacing and come closer to me. You decide against this and pull back, apparently gazing at my bookshelf. I wish you would look at me.

“When you kicked me out of bed that night…” you start.

I wince when you mention that. I know that you now understand why I did that but it still hurts me to hear this reference.

“I felt hurt…ridiculous.” You close your eyes, trying to arrange the thoughts into coherent sentences.

“I felt so stupid and well, unwanted.”

A sickening feeling washes over me.

“Oh no, you didn’t.”

“What?” you ask, alarmed.

“You…you hurt yourself again?”

I hope to God it’s not true. I couldn’t handle having you hurt yourself over me.

“No Jesus Dom, I wouldn’t do that to you.” And that closes the subject.

I hold myself from breaking in again. Your fingers twist themselves around one another, pinching and scraping the skin to ruination.

“So…when the tour finished and we hadn’t been talking, I thought I had lost you and as I said before, I need you as a friend, I can’t just not have you, it’s impossible. I realised that me getting into bed with you was what ruined that and I knew I had to fix it. I had to fix our friendship by getting rid of the part of me that wanted you.”

It is odd hearing you echoing the sentiments I myself had but affecting too.

“So.” You look at me quickly and then look away again. If you were any animal in the world, you would be a humming bird- constantly flitting, flying, moving, eager to taste life, quivering with energy but fragile and tiny too, so much so that I can almost feel your heart fluttering from here and you would also be the most beautiful, colourful exotic creature, anywhere, anytime.

“I…" you lick your lips..

“I went out the first night we came back and I got a prostitute.”

I suck in my breath through my teeth. I am not sure how this makes me feel or how I am supposed to feel.

“Not a prostitute. A rent boy.” You drop your hands to your sides.

“I’ve…I never had been with another man before and I had to know. I had to get rid of it somehow or I would lose you entirely.”

You stop talking and I don’t know how to fill the space. I can only let the silence grow.

“It was horrible.” You look up and then sideways, trying to keep yourself together. “It was…it was disgusting. Nothing like I thought it would be. Afterwards, I could barely look at him. And afterwards, I still didn’t feel…I still felt the same about you and I knew…” you tail off. You blink rapidly and try to finish what you want to say.

“I had to tell you because you said we were going to start over and I knew I couldn’t pretend like that hadn’t happened, when it affects us both, I guess.”

You bite your lips. Then you smile weakly, a mere turning up of the corners of your mouth.

“If you weren’t disgusted with me over me burning myself, now I know you must be really disgusted.”

I have no words to say. I used up all my words before, all my clever phrases and direct sentences, in order to sort out what was wrong between us. You have got how I feel at this moment so wrong and I don’t know how to tell you that I’m not disgusted, just really sad that you felt that way and that I wasn’t your first, to show you how beautiful it should have been. But I have run out of words and I revert to the actions I have held back from doing for so very, very long.

I cross the room and bundle your slight frame into my arms, holding you so tightly. Christ, I only want to make you happy again but I also selfishly just want to hold you, you gorgeous creature.

I trace lines of comfort down your back and you bury your face into the hollow of my neck and breathe deeply, your hands clutching at my shirt. I say nothing, only feel the rhythmical rise and fall of your chest against mine as you breathe. We are both soothed into a secure state, our combined breathing better than any lullaby.

After an unknown length of time, I reluctantly pry your body from mine. I can’t be selfish. Fuck knows, all I want to do is kiss you, grab you and drag you into the bedroom. But that’s what I want- not what you need.

I try to speak and fail. I try again.

What do you need now? I think. You need to relax, to be soothed. How do I do that?

“Here, Matt, sit down. I’ll run you a bath. Would you like that?”

You nod, surprised at the suggestion and sit on a nearby couch.

I go into the bathroom and roll up my sleeves. The place is a bit of a mess and as I let the bath fill up with steaming water, I clear bottles and other apparatus out of the way and try to place some order on the room.  
You must hear me clattering about for you come into the bathroom and stand at the doorway.  
“Hey.” You look pale and exhausted. Are my actions enough? I don’t know what else to offer you.  
The bath is filling up. I’m not sure why I suggested a bath. I thought it would be what you needed. You sit on the edge of the bath tub, leaning over and trailing your fingers through the water, an unreadable expression on your face.

I hunker down at your feet.

“Let’s get your clothes off then.”

A semblance of a smile lights up your face as how that sounds.

I pull off your shoes and socks first. I clumsily unbutton your shirt and slide it off your shoulders. I heap your clothes into a ungainly pile near the door.  
Then I help you into a standing position in order to undo your belt and take your trousers off, followed by your underwear.  
You lean on me as I undress you, seeming to enjoy the attention. You grip my arm as you lower yourself into the bath, letting out a shaky gasp as the hot water creeps up your body, arching your back as you settle in.  
I can’t help myself. I gaze at your naked form, rapt. You notice me looking at you and you warm to my attention, looking at me lazily, like a cat that starts to purr when its being scratched behind its ears.

Your skin is perfectly white, the white that you only ever see in black and white movies. I have seen you naked before. This is very different because of what it promises.  
I look at your outlined ribcage, taut stomach and visible hip bones. I look at your thighs, your neck , your back. I look at you, just look at you, the way I wanted to and I know that I will never have my fill of looking at you.

I break my gaze as I can see you starting to nod off, being eased into sleep by the warm water. I get up and take a plastic jug from underneath the sink. I realise I am going to get wet, so I take my own shirt off. I dip the jug into the water, filling it and push your head slightly forward and pour the water over your hair. I get the shampoo, work up a lather between my hands and then work the lotion through your hair. I massage your head with both hands, cocooning it. I rub the tip of your neck and behind your ears and you sigh contentedly. I refill the jug and clean the shampoo off. All I can taste in the back of my throat is the steam, the shampoo, my sweat and your own scent.

I take the shower gel, squirt some into my hands and begin to wash you.  
I lather foam along your shoulders and under your arms. You comply easily with everything I do. I allow myself the luxury of letting my fingertips explore the shapes and hollows of your collarbone and neck. I wash that off and rub the gel into your chest and stomach. Your eyes are fixed on mine, looking at how I massage the foam into your skin in gentle circular motions. My hands creep lower and lower, ghosting over the nearly gone welt on your left hip and brushing briefly, dangerously, off your pubic hair.  
I move and start to wash your back- it’s too late. I already have a hard-on.

I’ve finished washing you and I hope have distressed you and made you forget everything bad. I want the time we spend together to only be good.

“Do you want to stay here longer of do you want to get out?” I put the shower gel and shampoo back where they were.

“I’d like to get out now.”

You stand up and I come over to you, holding a gigantic white towel. You step out of the bath, drenching the floor but I don’t care because again, I can only look at your slim boy-ish body and feel my breath catch in my throat.  
I wrap the towel around you and I start to rub you dry. I feel a little unnerved that such intimate gestures don’t feel more awkward.

My arms are full of wet, shivering, giggling Matt Bellamy. For you are giggling as I dry you.  
It’s only starting to hit me now, what we are doing, what I’m doing. It didn’t really register before because it felt so natural, it felt as if things had always been this way between us. Maybe they were meant to be. I remember sitting beside you in bed that might and how I felt when you smiled at me- that all the broken episodes and lines of my life had been connected. That’s how I feel now.

You stop giggling and look at me. My hands freeze. Water is streaming from your hair still and I am getting soaked from holding you this close.

“Thank you.” You say.

I can only nod in return, happy that I got everything right for you. That everything is right between us. That everything is right.

You take a few breaths and then kiss my lips. My mouth opens instantly to welcome you and I cup your face with both my hands, allowing the towel to fall to the floor. I run my hands down the clean feeling, warm, barely dry expanse of your back, letting them come to rest on your bare backside. You cling to me again, insert your legs between mine and press your entire body against mine and do devastating things to the inside of my mouth.

It is a kiss speaking of many nights spent alone, tossing and turning. A kiss about food when you haven’t eaten in days. A kiss wrapped in the lingering smells of the outside world, the feelings of the past but also a snapshot of the future. A kiss greater than anything that ever played out on stage.

We eventually break apart.

“Matt.”

It’s the only thing- it’s all I can think, all I can see and taste. “Matt.” You dominate my senses, my life.

You drop another quiet kiss on my partially open motuh, a soft kiss, a kiss of reassurance, reassuring yourself as much as me.

“It’s a pity we didn’t get to have that date.” You say.

“I can’t help it- I start laughing. A date seems such a tame , pathetic thing at a time like this.

“I think we’ve moved beyond that stage.” I say. I run my hands over your body, constantly, telling myself, that yes, I really do have my arms full of naked Matt Bellamy. And it feels as wonderful as I imagined it would.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first steps in the new relationship...

Nothing happened that night. Well, that depends on what your definition of ‘nothing’ is. 

The events of the day and the warm bath had left you fit for nothing but sleep. After that first life-affirming kiss, you started to doze off, to slip away and by the time I carried you into the bedroom, you were asleep. I laid you down on the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, my eyes roving over your body. I was still trying to get used to the idea that you and I were together. I don’t think I ever want to get used to it. 

The pillow darkened as your still wet hair dampened it. You looked tired but peaceful, as if someone had whispered something wonderful into your ear just before you fell asleep. But we hadn’t said anything, just looked at one another in the aftermath of that kiss. 

Your hand was under your head, pillowing your cheek. You lay slightly on your side, towards me, elegantly sprawled on my narrow, single bed, looking as if you were offering your beauty to me. You looked like a Greek God, or a Greek God’s muse. 

I gently eased the blanket out from under you and threw it over you. You didn’t even move. I slipped my jeans off and wearing only my underwear, got into bed next to you. I wriggled down so I was on a level with your face and I could feel each exhalation of your breath on my skin. I could smell your scent- a gorgeous mixture of freshly washed skin and something familiar. I realised that it was my own smell, transferred onto your skin from our kiss. 

You shifted in your sleep and I found myself with you curled up on my shoulder, one hand draped over one of mine. 

I slept deeply but woke early. I watched the sun rise, casting shadows on the walls and lighting up your face. 

Your eyes fluttered open, flicking from side to side before alighting on me and looking at me in surprise but then softening. You dropped a kiss on my shoulder. 

“Good morning.” 

And in that instant, I knew how things would always be between us. 

It’s not that my life is dead and awful without you. It’s not that you complete me either. But it’s a closer description to what I mean.   
I’ve lived without you for a long time. My life was good. I have been very blessed. But now that you and I are together, my life feels more necessary, as if before I was a black and white TV that had good, clear reception but now with you, I am alive in Technicolor and Surround sound. You make me feel more vital, elevated, and essential. 

Still, you’re the lyricist- I’ll leave that kind of thing to you. 

Our lives change- of course they do. Chris’s reaction to the news was great. 

“What did he say?” you asked nervously when I came back from talking to Chris. You had been too shy to come with me and I let you off the hook. 

“He kind of lost the power of speech for a moment but then slapped me on the back and said something along the lines of “about fucking time, you twats.” He also said he’d personally beat you up if you ever do anything to break my heart.” 

Your eyes widened. “He didn’t? But I never would, you know that Dom!”

I flopped into a chair. 

“He did say it but he also threatened me for the same reason. Anyway, you’re coming with me to tell Tom, yeah?”

“OK.”

You came over to me and sat in my lap. You looped one arm around my neck and rested your forehead against mine. I pushed my hands through your hair, stroking and tweaking the black strands. 

“What was that for?” I asked. 

“I don’t know…just, you know.”

We were always so close, I should have known, I thought to myself. I should have known that this was the natural conclusion of our relationship. People always just assumed were best friends and that this explained away any unseemly behaviour on our part. I guess I thought that too- we were friends, so it didn’t matter how we acted around one another, nothing could be read into it. We were both very blind.   
Or maybe we were just laying the foundations for what was to come. 

I still feel odd about how we got together- some parts I’d rather forget. I know it all turned out well, but some things nag at me. I have this wish that we could make a break between the two parts of our life- before and after. I guess life is never that simple, marked out into blocks of time or events. You can’t look back and say this is when that happened and then this happened afterwards. It doesn’t work like that. So many things happen at once, overlapping continuously in just one life. 

I’d still like to mark this new start somehow. 

“Matt?” 

“Mmm?”

“Would you like to go on a short holiday?” 

 

“Bellamy, what are you humming?” I ask. 

“Don’t know. Something I hope will become a song.”

You keep humming, changing the tune, altering it as we walk along the dusty woodland path. We walk slowly, leisurely. We aren’t hurrying anywhere. 

Our destination starts to become visible- a huge expanse of water, flanked by many trees. The lake. The lake where everything began all those few months ago. 

We pick the first likely looking spot and swiftly begin to pitch our tent. We work together- you connect the poles and I put the frame up. You tie the strings to the tent pegs and then hold them for me to pound into the ground with a mallet.

The sun is starting to set as we finish putting up the tent. 

We eat a quick, simple dinner, sitting by the lake’s side. You uncork a bottle of red wine, pour some into a plastic cup and offer the bottle to me. I pour myself some wine and look at the lake. 

This place will always be special to me now. I start to wonder where the water itself came from. I look around to see where the river is that ends its journey here but I can’t find it. 

Rivers, I think, taking a sip of wine, are odd things, when you consider them really.   
They start off as a small, fragile trickle. They cut their course instinctively, blindly, somehow knowing what they’re ultimate aim is. They overcome many barriers- rocks, mud, human interference but they carry on nonetheless. They become stronger, more frenzied the water rushing over the land, unstoppable, until they gather themselves together and channel their force into reaching a sea or a lake. Then with their journey completed, they flow on quietly, yet strongly. Ever-changing but eternal. 

Once my brain stops working so busily, I fully absorb how quiet it is here. 

I turn to you to point this out and I’m startled by what I see. 

You’re sitting on the grass, leaning back slightly and propping yourself up on one elbow. You’re drinking the wine and looking at me. Your eyes are half-closed, sleepy looking almost but for the energy burning in them. 

You take another slug of the wine, put the glass down on a rock and draw yourself in beside me. You put your hands on my shoulders until I’m laying on the ground, looking up at you. You straddle me, then bend down and coax my head towards yours and kiss me. You kiss me and let the wine you had been holding in your mouth trickle into mine. I greedily lick every drop from your lips and swallow the dark liquid eagerly. 

Your hands are running all over my body, undoing buttons and zips. I keep my hand curled around your neck, entwined in your hair. My mind is swamped by peacefulness but my body zings with love and desire. 

You kiss me everywhere- you worship my mouth, my neck, my thighs equally. You stop though. I can only listen to the shaky sound of my own breathing and look at you. 

You’re looking at me too. You don’t just look at my face; you look at my whole body, every inch of it, examining it, like a work of art. 

And in a flood of joy, it hits me that you are looking at me the way I look at you and that is all I need. 

You seem to fumble for a moment, to lose your self-possession. But you quickly come back to yourself. 

You place your right hand on my chest and leave it there for a moment. Then you start to move it, in odd gestures. Almost as if you were tracing something on my chest. You repeat the movements and I realise that you are tracing something- letters. You repeat the movements once more without being asked. 

I. L. O. V…

“Oh Matt.” I exhale. “I love you too. It took me a long time to get there but I do.” 

You dip your head, almost embarrassed. I kiss you, bang smash on the mouth and reverse our positions so now I’m lying on top of you. 

And the lake water laps along the rocks, the wind blowing the rippling waves in and out. The waters surges forward and pulls back, again and again, strong, eternal but each wave bringing a new sensation. The water envelops us, brings us deep down inside it and finally washes us ashore, beached, sated, exhausted, more ourselves than we have ever been. 

We eventually rouse ourselves and move into the tent. I can hear the lake water lapping though the light material. I don’t zip the tent closed. But leave it open to the night. 

We lie down again, sinking back into our previous positions. I wrap my arms around your slender waist, curving myself around you. I rest my head in the crook of your shoulder. You drape one hand of my thigh, just resting it there, the weight comforting. 

This night is ours. 

Tomorrow, we will have to get up, pick bits of grass off of ourselves and pack up the tent. We will have to go back to the band, to Chris, to the public. But nothing will change what we have now. 

And somehow that’s all I need. All you need. 

We are starting out on our journey together. 

The moon shining in through the tent pales, fades and weakens, letting a grey darkness descend. I don’t care as I no longer need to be guided by its celestial light.


End file.
